“The president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.”
That’s the rationale Michael Alexander, a Southwest passenger, used to defend his groping of a female passenger on a flight from Houston Hobby to Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon.
In a scene right out of a horror film, the female passenger was allegedly groped from behind, with Alexander seated in the row behind her. USA Today reports:
The woman said she felt Alexander’s hand move from behind her and grab her right breast. She said she fell asleep about 20 minutes into the flight and not long after, she felt him touch her but assumed it was an accident, according to court documents.
About 30 minutes later, she said she felt Alexander’s hand grab the back of her arm and grope around her ribs and then her breast.
After the second incident, she called out to flight attendants for help, who reseated her in the last row of the aircraft. Law enforcement officials met the aircraft upon landing. While Alexander denied touching the women, his “thick fingers with dirty nails and dark hair” matched the victim’s description. And of course he also saw fit to add, “The president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.” This is in reference to an Access Hollywood interview the U.S. President gave in 2005 that I will not even dignify with a link.
Alexander is now in jail pending a preliminary hearing.
CONCLUSION
I’m not going to hem and haw over how perverse our culture has grown. Unlike Alexander, let me state it bluntly: we all have personal responsibility. His actions are deplorable and I publicize them only in an effort to convince others to think twice before acting. This is not how a member of a civilized society should behave.
image: Southwest Airlines / H/T: View from the Wing
I’ll say this: the scariest to come out of Trump’s election is not Trump himself, but that his supporters now feel emboldened to act like this.
…or the President of the United States, but here we are.
Seriously? You really think you have a bunch of low-life Alexander-types following you that you need to lecture us on the fact that assaulting a woman “is not how a member of a civilized society should behave”? That we should “think twice” before we do so? Wow. Patronizing much?
But this obviously isn’t about that. There’s tons of incivility consistently going on out there in our streets and restaurants and throughout society which apparently you haven’t felt the need to lecture us about, but all the sudden you happen to pick this one-off psycho instance to highlight? Weird. I wonder if this low-life hadn’t used Trump as his absurd excuse for his obvious psycho behavior, you wouldn’t have suddenly felt the need to highlight this instance of incivility either. Feel free to take your shots at Trump all you want, it’s your blog, but surely you can do it without hiding behind some lame excuse and insulting your readership at the same time.
You really need to stick to travel subjects. Because you’re really bad at lecturing on moral behavior. Or at least pretending to do so in order to vent some of your Trump-hate.
Chris, thanks for your comment. A couple of points. First, I wrote about this story because it took place on a commercial airplane flight. As it turns out, I already have a post penned which condemns the recent spate of restaurant harassments that I assume you will like because the primary victims have been Republican politicians. I try to write about politics only when I can link it back to travel.
Second, the fact that this guy blamed Trump is the lynchpin of the story. It’s not anti-Trump to point it out. Please don’t make assumptions about my politics. I don’t hate anyone and was not taking shots at Trump in this post, unless you consider not defending his filthy language an attack.
Yikes! Somebody was triggered.
Right? It’s incredibly awkward when Conservatives are actually the snowflakes. Especially since they LOOOOVE to tell everyone else to “suck it up” and that “the world doesn’t revolve around you” when you don’t get your way. Yet the second someone does something they don’t like, all of a sudden they’re crying and whining. How utterly pathetic.
As a woman that has no tolerance for such nonsense, I would have broken/dislocated his finger.
There’s always gonna a Trump redneck moron-voter who jumps to outrage over any negative press for their chosen one.
Chris- I’ll cut to the chase. This is a travel blog yes, which means writing largely about leaving the US. I’m not in the US, an a UK citizen and live in a beautiful place in Europe.
You Trump idiots are a laughing stock here, people completely despise your racist, selfish, idiotic, arrogant, misogynistic, disgusting ideaology.
Your guy is systematically destroying American so called values, and more importantly your reputation abroad. Totally.
So hoard all your points etc to travel. Just Don’t come to my town and expect not to be called out for your stupidity and Nazi BS you soulless individual.
Seriously ??……if you hate America and Americans so much, please don’t visit or come to live in the United States (we have enough illegal foreigners, leeches and boorish, ill-mannered tourists) — and certainly don’t use a travel blog to spew your political dislikes and hatred of Americans. By the way, anyone with intelligence would realize that the headline is just “quoting” what the passenger said, Chris is not defending Trump or Trump supporters. Ignorance should be painful.
…CORRECTION (not Chris but Matthew is the writer of this article).
I don’t dislike Americans. I dislike Trump supporters. Like you obviously. Intensely, with every ounce of my soul.
Boorish, ill mannered?? Hahaha. Wow, I doubt you have any idea of your image to the world.
However as I said… it’s the racist, dumb as hell, scumbags I dislike, not the average decent normal American who knows they are only 5% of the world, and that yes, other people matter. Mexicans are not insects, the world is not their dumping ground, black people are just as human… you know… 21st century stuff.
Oh, and don’t worry JoEllen from redneckville, I ain’t coming to visit. Ever.
Congrats you voted for the worst demagogue in first world history.
First, I’m not a redneck. Second, I don’t vote, ever. I am not a supporter of any world leader or politician or of (your quote) any “demagogue”.
Good grief, go vent your vicious anger on some U.K. blog – a U.S. travel blog is not the place to do it…..and again, in case you didn’t get it, Matthew was just quoting the jerk on the plane, not endorsing Trump or Trump supporters.
@Andy, yeah you…talk about unaware. Who said anything about being a Trump supporter or defending this jerk? Do you not get it that I am clarifying that Matthew’s original comment is that he was also not defending this jerk nor is Matthew a Trump supporter and/or anti-Trump?? What is it you’re not getting? ….and nowhere did I say I was “suddenly” an independent or suddenly a non-voter or a Trump supporter or not. I have never voted. I could not care any less who is in office or what they do – it’s all futile. Unlike ignoramuses who get apoplectic over people with a neutral stand or whether or not someone votes or not. I choose not to vote because I don’t put my trust in any human ruler or government. For all I care it can all go to hell in hand basket – #me too, pink hats, liberal-save-the-world-types, and all the other psychobabel people feed into, etc. saves a lot of stress and worry. Have a good day.
When you say we have enough leeches and boorish, ill-mannered…you’re including yourself, right?
No, why would I ?
Jo Ellen, how is it possible for you to be so unaware? You jumped to the defence of a Trump supporter. You ridiculous person. Suddenly you’re an independent, with no affiliations to anything. Wow. Get a life, and understand what is going on around you. It ain’t pretty. You live in Trump’s America, and that comes with consequences, on the world stage.
Oh… and you could have voted to stop him. You didn’t. Now suck it up or help clean up your disgraceful image in the world. You won’t do either… I know.
@Andy, yeah you…talk about unaware. Who said anything about being a Trump supporter or defending this jerk? Do you not get it that I am clarifying that Matthew’s original comment is that he was also not defending this jerk nor is Matthew a Trump supporter and/or anti-Trump?? What is it you’re not getting? ….and nowhere did I say I was “suddenly” an independent or suddenly a non-voter or a Trump supporter or not. I have never voted. I could not care any less who is in office or what they do – it’s all futile. Unlike ignoramuses who get apoplectic over people with a neutral stand or whether or not someone votes or not. I choose not to vote because I don’t put my trust in any human ruler or government. For all I care it can all go to hell in hand basket – #me too, pink hats, liberal-save-the-world-types, and all the other psychobabel people feed into, etc. saves a lot of stress and worry. Have a good day.
Please point out in the blog post where Matthew says anything about hating Americans. Aside from mentioning Trump – which the attacked did so is fair game to report, this was actually fairly neutral politically. In fact, you’re the only one asserting anyone hates anybody else.
It appears that this guy has more or less admitted he did it. Quite the sleazebag. On the other hand , there’s a lot of instances in ” Me Too” complaints where the behaviour complained about is really normal human interaction rather than harassment. It’s a pity . It would be good to weed out the real abusers without making people fearful of making a sexual remark/approach lest they be accused of molestation. Some of it is PC gone mad, and with elements of “I saw Rebecca Nurse dance with the Devil”. Geoffrey Rush a case in point.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that perhaps this guy is just a moron? And by the way, who says he is a Trump supporter? Perhaps he is just a sleazebag Democrat who had to lay blame somewhere for his impulses? Come on people.